My Family Is Not a Second-Best Option

When John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage suggested that families with adopted children were inferior, Adam Pertman, head of The Donaldson Adoption Institute, an independent and nonpartisan think tank, countered. In this guest post, his response corrects erroneous thinking with facts about single and married, gay and lesbian parents who adopt.

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Quest post: I hadn't known it until just this week, but Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, President Ronald Reagan, singer Marie Osmond, actor Hugh Jackman, journalist Judy Woodruff, basketball great Magic Johnson and I all have something in common: Our families are inferior.

At least that is what John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, suggested during an interview with the Associated Press about two cases currently before the Supreme Court regarding marriage rights for non-heterosexuals. Asserting that lesbians and gay men should not be permitted to wed because the primary reason for marriage is procreation, Eastman added, "Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts' family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option."

The sound you're hearing is the blood of millions of people throughout the United States and beyond -- gay and straight, single and married, parents and children -- boiling.

The Donaldson Adoption Institute, an independent and nonpartisan think tank that I am proud to lead, conducts research and policy analysis on a broad range of issues relating to adoption, foster care, parental education, professional training and, at the bottom line, best practices for children in need of safe, permanent, loving families. As a result of our work, and that of every other major, mainstream organization that has examined the relevant issues, I know that qualified gay and lesbian parents not only can provide such families, but are successfully doing so in growing numbers every single day.

During a lower-court trial leading up to one of the cases now before the Supreme Court, a then-star witness against gay marriage -- David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values -- acknowledged that studies "show that adoptive parents, because of the rigorous screening process that they undertake... actually on some outcomes outstrip the biological parents in terms of providing protective care for their children." Message to Eastman and others who share your views: You're entitled to your own opinions about gay marriage and parenting, but the research is the research, and you are not entitled to your own facts.

The National Organization for Marriage and other like-minded groups have not only tried to produce their own truths about adoption and gay-led families, but also about marriage itself. They flatly state, in the amicus briefs they have submitted to the Supreme Court, that marriage exists in order to promote "procreation and childbearing," and they argue that since gays and lesbians cannot themselves create children, it is acceptable to prevent them from marrying.

The Adoption Institute's own amicus to the Court offers a decidedly different perspective, based not only on the research on gay and lesbian families, but also on the empirical reality that millions upon millions of children in our country and all others are being successfully parented by single, widowed and divorced men and women, cohabitating couples and other unmarried adults; if the law is to be consistent, should they be prohibited from raising their sons and daughters? Furthermore, untold numbers of heterosexuals throughout time have gotten married, and are doing so today, without any intention of having children or, sometimes, without the ability to do so. Should they, like lesbians and gay men, be prohibited from walking down the aisle?

"Both history and scholarly research demonstrate that loving, nurturing families for children come in many different sorts and sizes," the Adoption Institute's amicus brief states, in part. "A biological connection between a parent and a child is neither necessary nor sufficient to ensure 'responsible childrearing.'"

One more conclusion from numerous studies: Notwithstanding the reality that girls and boys can do very well in all sorts of families, they do indeed benefit from marriage for an array of legal and social reasons. So, if the best interests of children are truly paramount, and if research and experience show that lesbians and gay men can make good parents -- via adoption or the old fashioned way -- what is this same-sex marriage debate really about?

Finally, I'd like to take off my research/policy/professional hat for a moment to directly address Eastman's "second best" comment. Is adoption sometimes a second choice? Of course, but that doesn't mean for a second that it is second best, and perpetuating that contention does nothing more or less than stigmatize, undermine and insult the tens of millions of Americans (that's right, tens of millions) who have adoption in their immediate families.

Speaking for my wife and me, as the parents of two first-rate children who came into our family through a process we chose as our best option, I know that Eastman is as wrong as wrong can be. If we lived back in the time when views such as his were more prevalent, I'd challenge him to a duel.

It doesn't matter to Susan Newman that according to NOM that gays are second-rate, unmarried people are second-rate, married people without children are second-rate. That's all fine. Susan Newman only gets angry when NOM says that married people who adopt children are second rate, that's not okay with her.

Sometimes Adam Pertman just likes to hear himself talk. He can take one sentence and twist and turn it into something entirely different as long as he can be in the news, on the radio or running his mouth.